I'm going to leave this, because it's a useful question (even though there was a spam response by someone obviously connected to the original poster)

I think there are some variations in how people define these terms. For example, "responsive" web design (lower-case r) can refer to any method that adjusts a website design to fit the size of the device. It doesn't necessarily have to be Responsive Web Design (RWD) as defined in Ethan Marcotte's A List Apart article. RWD specifically uses media queries and flexible grids to adjust the layout to fit the size of the viewport.

I've seen the term "adaptive" used with several different meanings so it's unclear as to what someone might mean by using this term. It might mean using different templates ands tylesheets for different devices. It might mean something more like progressive enhancement, which considers more than just the size of the viewport. This article from Sitepoint describes Adaptive Web Design as something more similar to RESS, where you would change portions of your mark-up depending on the device.